mm3project

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Detailed Design Doc - submission

Submit your detailed design document to the School Of Science office for the attention of Colm Dunphy by close of business on Friday 30th Novemeber.Any documents recevied late will be treated as being late and will docked marks accordingly!

An electronic version (.pdf) must also be made available on your project web site.Send an email to cdunphy@wit.ie subject: "MM3 Detailed Design Doc - ". The body of the email should have a hyperlink directly to the .pdf on your website.

Web 2.0 UI Frameworks

Friday, November 16, 2007

Fri 16th Nov

I'm sorry but I will be unable to attend today's class as I have a doctor's appointment. Please continue your work, compile a list of any questions that you may have and email them to me at cdunphy@wit.ie.If any group wishes I can arrange to meet with you at an alternative time next week. Again, just email me and let me know.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Attendence Register

Every group, please create a table listing each team members name. Show columns for every class hour this term (i.e. 1 class on tues, 2 class hours on either Wednesday or Friday). Indicate whether you were present or not FOR EACH HOUR OF EACH WEEK.

Requirements For Games Design

1) A story - don't just set the scene, describe you walking through the virtual world in which the game is set.

2) An inventory of all the items that you can interact with in the virtual world. Categorize these. Describe them. Create an image for each one.

3) A high level map showing all the levels & screens within the virtual game world. Use this as an index into the detail of each screen. e.g. if you have 3 levels with 8 screens in each level, you would number each screen 1.1,1.2,1.3 on level 1. Then 2.1,2.2,2.3 on level 2 etc.

4) Each screen should be drawn in detail with the inventory applied.You will have an image for each screen. And a grid list the inventory items on each screen plus the counts of each inventory item for that screen.You may also need to write some desciptive text with each screen.

5) If you print out and stick all the detailed screens together you end up with the detailed design for the map of the game. (alternatively stich all the screens together in Phototshop or Illustrator and print out on the designjet print (A0 +)

6) Using the output of 5) above, play the game as a board game. (you may need to incorpate a dice). This will help you establish the RULES of the game and ensure that the game is playable.

7) After refining 1-6 above, when you are happy with the game, record a video of yourselves playing the game. Don't forget to edit it!This is your prototype 3.

8) The requirements for your detailed design document will have been pretty much built at this stage. However you are not finished.

9) The project planBased on what you will have worked out to date, you know what needs to be done to implement the your board game as a computer game. List all the task, sub divide each task to it's lowest level. Estimate the time required for that task. Repeat for all tasks. Now assign tasks to team members. Save in a MS Project or in an MS EXCEL spreadsheet or in another approriate programme. Include in detailed design document.

Detail Required for next handup

Most projects have now completed 2 iterations of basic design. After you apply the feedback given to you at class, you need to get into the DETAILED design. But what level of detail?

Well you need layout grids, specs for styles, colours etc. To help with this I will post 2 bookmarklets for FireFox which will help.

Database fields need to be refined to the appropriate type and size with verification/validation rules. Relationships between tables need to be shown and described. Queries that are required for the system need to be described / created. (if you use access you can create the queries visually and display the SQL which can be cut and pasted into your design doc)

All stories/walkthroughs should be FULLY visualized. A site map (with indexing) can help reviewers see the whole system and get the detail of each subsection / page. Use the indexing consistently throughout.

You should have a DETAILED DESIGN DOCUMENT already stated by now. Please use styles in creating this.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Prototype 2 Overdue

Prototype 2 was due yesterday. I've only received 2 Prototypes to date and only 1 student has turned up for today's class. I expect prototypes to be submitted by sending me a direct email link to the file/directory on your webserver. Any submissions after 1.15 today will be treated as being LATE.

Reminder: In recent classes I've gone through database design for each of your projects, I will be expecting same in prototype 2.